Windmills Of Your Mind
by Maple Fay
Summary: Everyone thinks he's dead, so he needs to disappear. She knows everything about disappearing. And being dead.   Post 2x03 AU, Sherlock/Irene.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N:** Me again. Seems that I cannot stay away from this fandom, try as I might. This story takes place in the alternative universe I'd established in my other story, "The Games We Play" (after its fourth chapter, to be more exact), so you might want to check that one out before you read this. In case you don't, just note that for the purpose of this story John is married to Mary when "The Reichenbach Fall" events take place, and Sherlock has a… difficult relationship with Irene, to put it mildly._

_Anyway, I hope you enjoy it—especially you, Osage!... Feedback is love._

_(PS. The characters in this story belong to somebody else, I'm just playing with them. And the title belongs to Sting, of course.)_

* * *

><p>"Where would you go?" Molly asks, and looks at him hopefully. <em>Stay with me. Come to my place<em>.

"Somewhere nobody would look for me." _Your place would be too obvious. _You _would be too obvious. But you helped me, and I'm grateful._

They don't say much else, but they understand each other very well in this moment of bright clarity.

* * *

><p><em>I'm not dead. Looking for a place to live.<em>

* * *

><p>He stays in an empty warehouse, a squat found by one of his most trustworthy 'homeless agents'. He sits by the wall, wrapped in his coat, and keeps himself going by means of nicotine, the drugs Molly provided him with, and Indian takeaway. His agent is quite resourceful indeed.<p>

It takes her four days to come and get him, and by that time he hardly resembles the old Sherlock Holmes, the drugs having worn out and left him shaking, babbling and disoriented. She shakes her head and puts her arm around his shoulders, half-dragging him into the back of a rented car. "You look awful."

"I've seen you look much worse." And he has, that night in Pakistan—which she knows, so she lets the remark slide. "Where are you taking me?"

"To a safe place. Sleep."

So he does.

* * *

><p>It's a basement apartment with a separate entrance, quite handy if somebody asks him (which they don't). Irene makes him step out of his shoes as soon as the door closes behind them, and hands him a laundry net and a towel. "Bathroom's through there," she waves her hand towards the door on the right. "Take your time."<p>

He stands in the shower until the water turns cold, rubbing, scraping, brushing, soaping and rinsing himself, trying desperately to forget, to draw the remnants of drug-induced numbness from his limbs. His reflection in the mirror shows a drawn, ashen face, empty eyes, lips pressed into a thin line. He puts on a tee and sweatpants she'd laid out for him, and walks towards the sounds of water boiling and cutlery clattering, his feet bare against the cold floor.

Every sensation seems to be intensified tenfold.

Irene is sitting on the kitchen table, the light from the window enveloping her, obscuring her features. She gestures towards a mug placed on the counter separating the kitchenette from the rest of the room, and sips on her own beverage.

He looks into the mug and frowns. "I'm not a child."

"You're not exactly a sane person, either, so you're off caffeine for the time being. Now drink your milk and off to bed with you."

Grudgingly he takes a sip and looks around: simple, modern interior, only the strictly necessary furniture, no pictures, photographs or other adornments; all in all, a cold, somewhat menacing living space. "Who lives here?"

"You do, now. But if you're asking who does it belong to, the answer is—a friend of mine."

"Someone who'd told you what they liked, and you provided admirable service to them?"

She glares, but doesn't respond to his taunting, and although it should mean that he's got an upper hand in the exchange, he feels something dangerously close to disappointment at her passiveness.

She jumps off the table, like a little girl, and gestures towards the back of the apartment. "I've made the bed. Sleep it off, you still look like a corpse warmed over."

"I'm supposed to be dead."

"So do I. Now, _go_."

There's a little more of the old Irene in the way she utters that order, and it makes him feel better. He puts the mug down, stifles a yawn. "What about you?" he asks, uncharacteristically caring. She just shrugs.

"Can't sleep. Jetlag."

He nods and turns away, entering the small windowless room behind a light partition, where only a bed fits: a claustrophobic, dark space making his heart contract (the feeling he pointedly tells himself to ignore). He sits on the edge of the bed (freshly washed linen, firm mattress) and listens to Irene pacing, shuffling papers and turning the lights down.

When he finally lies down and pulls a blanket over his head, it feels as if he is dying, dying at last, connecting heavily with the brutally cold pavement.

* * *

><p>The smell of gunpowder and the touch of wind on his face. The thick, dark blood flowing out of Moriarty's head. The voices—John, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Mycroft—calling him from the distance, as if separated from him by a thick plate of glass.<p>

The rush of the air as he tumbles down, down, down…

The coldness, the numbness, the darkness. The pain, pain everywhere, in every part of his body. In his mind. Perhaps even in his soul.

The arm sliding across his chest, pulling him back, away from the abyss, away from death.

"Stop it," her lips graze his ear, her forehead resting against the back of his head. "It's only a dream, Sherlock. Stop. This isn't true."

He's shaking, panting, furious at his body for betraying him like that. Her hand rests over his racing heart, unmoving, a weight that connects him to his world, an anchor pulling him down from the chaos, the windmill of thoughts, memories, mental associations and _feelings_ that he loathes. He reaches up, covers the hand with his clammy fingers. "I thought—"

"I know. I've been hearing gunshots or feeling the machete on my neck for weeks. Maybe months. But it's not true. You're neither dead nor dying. Try to remember that." Her voice is cold and impassive, like it has been the whole time since she came to the squat, but her hand is warm and her body is real, and he cannot, _will not_, let go.

He knows she's right, and he's being unreasonable and oh so _stupid_, but the world is still spinning like a crazy whirligig, and perhaps it's just the last batch of the drugs leaving his system and making him delirious…

"Hush now."

He remembers seeing her through the haze of a different delirium, and smiles into the pillow. "I'm not usually like that."

"I suppose you don't usually commit suicides, do you? Go back to sleep, Sherlock."

He half expects her to pull her hand away and leave him to wrestle with another wave of nightmares that's bound to start as soon as he closes his eyes—but she stays, breathing onto his neck, still and quiet like a living statue: and he sleeps, really sleeps, calm and peaceful and _resting_, for the first time since he fell.

* * *

><p>When he wakes up, he's alone.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>TBC?...<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N:** Thank you very much for your kind response to the first chapter! I know it took me quite some time to write the second, but this story (and the characters…) has a life of its own, and all I can do is to follow its flow. Anyway, I do hope you enjoy this—feedback is love, as always, and I do not own anyone or anything in the story, except for the idea itself._

* * *

><p>He walks into the kitchen, checks the cupboards for coffee, finds none—Irene has really done her homework. The fridge is stacked with fresh, healthy food, lots of vegetables and dairy, some chicken. There's fresh bread laid out under a glass cover by the toaster, a lump of butter with a small, round-tipped knife resting beside it; he spots a small, glass bowl with some oval, brown pills in it. Irene left a sticky note on the table next to it, saying simply "Herbal sedatives".<p>

It makes him feel like a patient in a mental hospital.

It makes him feel cared for and protected, in a bizarre, twisted way.

He wraps a sheet around himself and sits on a low lounge sofa, fingering through a stack of last week's newspapers. Some pages have been removed, and he's pretty sure they contained articles referring to his spectacular jump. Mental hospital all over again.

He turns the TV on, but apparently the signal has been cut off. There's a vast collection of DVDs piling up underneath the flat screen, though; he passes over some costume dramas (fervently hoping they are Irene friend's, not Irene's) and settles for _Doctor Who_, dry swallowing a couple of herbal pills on an empty stomach.

* * *

><p>Irene wakes him up with a light touch of her hand to his forehead. "Have you eaten?"<p>

He blinks, surprised to find the screen blank (the DVD has apparently finished playing some time ago) and the light outside the window already fading. "I don't cook."

"Perhaps you should consider picking it up. After all, it _is_ the first day of the rest of your life."

"Really, Irene? Isn't that a tad too _cliché_?"

"Not in this case, no." She leaves him and walks into the kitchen, turns the light on. She looks tired, with dark circles under her eyes and pale lips, but moves purposefully, shoes lost in the corridor and the sleeves of her blouse rolled up to her elbows. Sherlock observes her with half-closed eyes, head hanging over the arm of the sofa.

He should be bored to death due to lack of problems to solve. He should be craving something—food, cigarette, his violin, work, stupid TV programmes to mock.

Instead, he feels numb. Cold. Even more detached from the outside world than usual.

Irene pulls a sharp-looking knife from some secret hiding place, and starts chopping the tomatoes. "You could at least pretend to help," she says without any real reproach. Sherlock gets up and walks over to the kitchen, perching himself on the table where she sat the day before.

"Already regretting bringing me here?" he asks, watching the shadows dance on her face, obscuring her eyes as she shakes her head.

"I don't do regrets, Sherlock. But you might, from what I've seen."

"How so?" he frowns, for once not quite able to follow her reasoning.

She puts the knife down and leans forward, facing away from him, her body weight suspended on stretched arms. His eyes follow the elegant line of her back, imagining it under the professional white of the blouse.

"You don't want to be here, Sherlock. You've lost control over your life; you _lost the game_, and it's making you crazy. Perhaps you don't feel it yet—but you will, soon enough. And then you'll despise me for keeping you here. You'll want to go out, to _be_ out—and we both know that can't happen, at least not yet."

"How long do you _intend_ to keep me here, then?" he presses on, grabbing a piece of a carrot and chewing on it furiously. Irene arches her eyebrows.

"As long as I deem necessary."

He's not sure if being completely at her mercy is such a good idea, but there's something inside his head blocking the insistent stream of his thoughts, cooling him down. "And what would you have me do, seeing that I'm to be imprisoned here for an undefined amount of time?"

There's no real bite in his voice, just resignation, and from a flash of concern in Irene's eyes Sherlock knows she's just as troubled by the fact as him.

She hands him a plastic bag with something troublingly green inside. "You can rinse the snow peas."

* * *

><p>She makes 'something Chinese' and Sherlock frowns at it, before taking an experimental bite and finding that, first, it's quite tasty, and second, he's positively famished. They eat it silence, put the plates into the dishwasher and turn the TV back on, resuming what seems to be turning into a spontaneous <em>Doctor Who<em> marathon. Sherlock feels slightly dizzy, and tired, exhausted even, though he hadn't actually _done_ anything strenuous, physically or intellectually. He simply sits in his corner of the sofa, feet put up on the seat, and watches Irene curl around a big, red pillow as she carefully follows the show.

"If you could travel in time and space," she asks as the end credits of the second episode start rolling in, "where would you go?"

It's speculation. He should hate it, and he does, but he's far too far gone to protest against the sentiment. "Oh, there are so many possibilities… Back into childhood, to strangle my brother. Or to that moment in the lab when Molly first introduced me to Moriarty." He presses his lips together at the thought of that fateful mistake. "Or two months into the future, to see how it all turns out."

"Two months may be too early."

"I certainly hope not. What about you? Where, or when, would you go?"

Irene shrugs, keeping her eyes fixed on the screen. "Somewhere warm, and far away. Not necessarily in a different time."

"Really? I would have thought you might have gone and set a different password on that camera-phone of yours, for one."

"Why would I want to change it? It was the truth."

"One that made you lose the game."

"So? Didn't _you_ lose your game because of the truth?"

He did, and she's right, but he'd never willingly admit it. "The lack of it, I'd say."

"Same thing, in the end." She sits up, pauses the episode. "Do you want to keep on watching this? I think I'll turn in early."

"Why? An early start tomorrow? Some urgent business to take care of?" he spats, feeling quite jealous of her having a purpose, a goal, somewhere to go to in the morning, something to _do_, other than watching TV series and taking pills.

"Just one. Well?"

He reaches over for the remote, turns the TV off. "Let's sleep. But no more of those herbal drugs, thank you. I don't like the taste of them."

* * *

><p>They skip the pretence and go to bed together this time, falling asleep on the opposite sides.<p>

He has yet another dream, of gunmen and explosions, of blood and body parts, of Mrs. Hudson's eyes frozen in an image of horror and surprise, of John's head bashed in, of…

She wakes him up, holds him, lets him hide his face in her shoulder until the wave of dry, tearless sobs passes completely.

"I need you," he says against her skin, shaking and sweating, and hating himself for being so miserably _weak_.

"I know," she answers and pushes him onto his back, straddling his hips.

It's embarrassingly short, mechanical and emotionless, and he knows now why people call it a type of gymnastics. He also knows Irene didn't enjoy it, but when he moves his hand to touch her, to repay the favour, she pushes his fingers away.

"Leave it be," she murmurs, curling into a ball on her side, facing away from him—but doesn't protest when his arm snakes around her waist.

The touch of her skin calms him down much better than any amount of sex could.

Perhaps _that's_ what she really meant when she'd asked him to have dinner with her. Perhaps not.

"You never said where you're going tomorrow," he points out some time later, sleep slowly closing in on him. Irene leans into him, skin on skin, one simple move bringing them closer, physically if not emotionally. They don't cuddle—they share the other's personal space, and it's far more significant than anything lovers usually do.

She's silent for so long he loses hope for an answer, and lets himself succumb to sleep.

In the end, he's not quite sure if the two words she whispers are real, or just a part of his dream.

"Your funeral."

**TBC...**


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N:** Thank you for all your lovely reviews, I'm positively overwhelmed with the response to this story. You are the best readers ever._

_This chapter takes the story to a slightly different level. I'm still trying to understand what exactly do Sherlock and Irene want me to do with them—but I believe we may be getting somewhere. That's not to say it's going to be an easy ride. Not by a long shot._

_Feedback is love, and makes my Muse happy._

* * *

><p>She decides to go to the funeral in her 'Miss Murray' get-up, which makes Sherlock think of John's wedding, and the weekend afterwards. They don't speak about it, but they both remember. Vividly.<p>

"I've made you some coffee," she says, leaning over to brush her lips across his forehead in a hasty goodbye. Sherlock quirks an eyebrow.

"What about the off-caffeine predicament?"

"I'm attending your funeral today. I'd like to come back and see you _not_ looking like a warmed-up corpse, hence the dispensation. Unless you want me to pour it down the sink?"

He's a little surprised by her brusqueness, and wants to ask her if she's alright, but he doesn't, of course not. It's not what they do. "Did I say anything about not wanting it?"

"Good," She nods and leaves the apartment, locking the door behind her without missing a beat.

* * *

><p>The coffee helps a little, and he manages to actually do some 'work': namely, he enters his Mind Palace and refreshes his memory of certain historical facts and physiological abnormalities—not that he needs to, he simply <em>wants to<em>. Keeping himself in the loop, making sure that the cogs in his mind keep on turning despite the fact he cannot put them to any real use, seems vital in a way.

Irene comes back after no longer than three hours—naturally, she didn't linger, why would she? "How was it?" he asks from his customary place on the sofa, watching her pull back her hair and enter the bathroom to get rid of the make-up.

"Rather quiet. No more than twenty people, I believe. Your _friends_ from the Yard seemed rather stunned. John cried. Mrs. Hudson did, too. Your brother's eyes remained dry," she lists in a clipped tone, coming back to the room in a dark-purple wrap blouse and jeans. "I liked the tombstone, black marble, just your name, very classy. And since there was no date, you could reuse it when the time _really_ comes." She picks up her bag, rummaging through the contents. "I brought you a treat."

"Lunch?" he asks hopefully, only to get snorted at.

"I was serious about your picking up the cooking. It's something else." She hands him a newspaper, the black-and-white face of Kitty Riley covering the whole front page. _Shocking Suicide Of A Promising Reporter_, says the headline in big, red letters.

There's an almost audible 'click' in his head, and the machinery is back on and running. "Impossible," he states firmly. Irene nods, straddling the arm of the sofa.

"Thought as much. Wasn't dear Jim staying with her at the time?"

"He was. Of course _she_ called him Richard, but the fact remains…" So many ideas. So many possible—and plausible—reasons for this not being a suicide. "Tell me more. What else do you know?"

Irene shakes her head, crosses her arms in front of her chest. "Only what it says here."

Sherlock groans and jumps to his feet, pacing furiously back and forth between the sofa, the TV, and the kitchen counter. "There _must_ be more! Why else would you give it to me? To torment me? Make me feel helpless, _useless_, completely out of my depth?" He's being bitter and unreasonable, he knows that, but cannot bring himself to stop. "Well done, Miss Adler, well done indeed."

She continues to simply look at him, her expression sober, cool and emotionless, before reaching back into her handbag and throwing him a brand new mobile. "It's a prepaid. Call your friend."

Sherlock frowns. "What friend?" _I only have one._

Irene simply smirks at him. "The cute one, who has a crush on you. The body's been taken to Bart's."

He feels like kissing her. He doesn't.

It's not what they do.

* * *

><p>He insists on going, and going alone. She doesn't question this decision, doesn't ask him to be careful, or watch out, or anything like that. She simply shrugs, unwraps her blouse and drops it to the floor as she walks purposefully into the bathroom.<p>

His eyes follow her until she closes the door.

For the first time, he makes use of the key, and locks Irene in the apartment.

* * *

><p>Molly is thrilled to see him, although she's also almost impossibly jumpy, nervous and tense. That's what you get when you drop by for a visit while being presumably dead, and before that—a wanted fugitive, Sherlock decides as he examines the body of Kitty Riley and listens to Molly's chattering.<p>

It doesn't matter. The most important thing is that he's here, doing what he knows, what he _desires_—and he's as good at it as ever.

He has some ideas, four of them to be exact. "I'd need some tests done," he says and hands Molly a list scribbled in short-hand. "Nothing too complicated, though slightly off the basic coroner's exam chart. They'd praise your eagerness and thoroughness, but won't trace it back to me."

She nods distractedly, and he wonders if she's even listening to him. "Molly?"

"You… you look good," she spits out and wrings her hands. "Is somebody taking care of you?"

He thinks of fresh linen, and homemade Chinese food, and things that come to pass in the dark hours of the night. Something new, strangely akin to an _emotion_, resonates within him, and for a second he's genuinely afraid.

"Sherlock?" Molly insists, her eyes round, watchful, and a little teary.

He thinks of Irene's eyes, bright and cold. Of the way she'd discarded her blouse to the floor. Of the swift, purposeful movements of her body.

"You might say that. Thank you, Molly, I'll be in touch."

He all but runs out the building, telling himself it's due to safety reasons. He wouldn't want to be caught be any of the security cameras, would he?

* * *

><p>There's an untouched bag of cold Indian takeout on the kitchen table. The lights are off, and the warm, dry air smells of oriental spices. Sherlock undresses in the darkness, dropping his clothes into a pile on the sofa, places the key on the kitchen table and walks into the bedroom, ignoring the food.<p>

"Have you eaten?"

"Wasn't hungry." She's on the far end of the bed, facing away from him yet not defensively curled: simply lying there, limbs loose, hair spilling down her neck. He lies down, places a hand flat between her shoulder blades.

"Irene."

"Did you find anything?"

"Perhaps. I'll know more after the tests come back."

"Good for you. Splendid. Marvellous."

"Irene—"

"Sometimes I really _do_ hate you, Sherlock Holmes."

He moves his hand up a little, then back down a little. It's not rubbing, or stroking, or caressing, not exactly. "Yes. Me too."

Silence.

"Are you going to tell me what's it all about?"

"_Think_. Guess. Deduce. Isn't that what you're good at?"

"It's never simple with you, is it?"

"Never. Problem?"

"Not in the slightest." He pulls her to him, blanket, sheet and all, holds her flush against his chest, burying his face in her hair. "They put me in a coffin, Irene. Or at least they thought it was me. My family. My friends. People I'd worked with. They never questioned anything. They didn't give my intellect the benefit of a doubt."

"They're just _people_, Sherlock. They're not like you."

"Or you."

"Or me," she agrees, relaxing a little against him.

"What are we, Irene?"

"Define the context of 'we'."

"Both possible senses of the word given the circumstances, if you will."

"Fine. Two individuals plagued by their own intellect. Too smart for their own good. Too perfect to allow themselves a chance to make mistakes, to feel any real emotions, much less show them. Satisfied?"

His hand cups her bare shoulder as he bends his head to rest his lips against her skin, not actually kissing it, but close enough. "And the other thing?"

"Well, we've established long ago that we're _not_ friends."

"Definition by negation? You can do better than that."

She sighs and presses her face into the pillow. "What if I don't want to?"

"Humour me."

"Isn't that what I've been doing these past few days?"

He grunts and falls back, pulling her with him to rest against his chest. "I find that I'm not satisfied with this answer."

"Too bad. That's the only one you'll get. For now."

"Will you go with me to pick up the results tomorrow?"

She snorts with laughter, cool air teasing his skin. "A date at the morgue? Really? What will your cute friend say?"

"You keep referring to Molly as 'cute'. Shall I introduce you?"

"Don't bother. I'm too busy dealing with you."

"What if I promised to cook? Would that give you the time to date?"

"Have you been drinking, Sherlock?..."

He smiles and unwraps the blanket from around her body, rewrapping it around the both of them. "It's the adrenaline talking. Ignore me."

"If only I could," she sighs with overdone dramatics, and finally puts her arm around him, placing her hand over his heart. He grew far more accustomed to lying with her like that than he's willing to admit.

"You'll learn, in time. After all, you're really, really smart."

"Oh, screw you."

"Since you're offering…"

She groans and sits up, looking down at him in the dark. "Why did it _ever_ occur to me that giving you a case would make you more bearable?"

"Because you're secretly a good person, Irene."

"If you tell this to anyone, I'd be force to inform the world that you're almost impossibly giddy, and you like to cuddle."

"This is _not_ cuddling! It's simply a… more efficient way of distributing body heat."

"Of course it is," she grumbles, but lies back and lets him hold her.

"So, will you? Go with me?"

"I'll need to check my calendar."

Which probably means 'yes'.

* * *

><p>"Oh," Molly says as the two of them walk into her lab the following evening, not touching, not even close to each other, but almost palpably <em>together<em>. "Oh, I see."

_Do you?_, Sherlock wants to ask as he takes the papers from her hands and quickly runs over the test results. _Because I don't._

It should bother him more, he realizes.

But as he dives head first into the case of what he now firmly believes to be a _murder_ of Kitty Riley, he lets the other problem rest for the time being.

It's not like Irene's going anywhere anytime soon.

Right?...

* * *

><p><strong>TBC...<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N:** I have been informed that, if I update this fic before Valentine's Day, Bananahammock will come to Poland and ask for my hand in marriage._

_Although I'm quite happy to remain single for the time being (despite my family's wishes), I feel flattered. Thank you. All of you, not only those expressing desire to help me alter my marital status. I hope you enjoy this update, as an early Valentine's present._

* * *

><p>It was poisoning, he finds; Moriarty drenched a tampon in a pretty nasty chemical compound, let it dry and them placed it conveniently in Kitty Riley's bathroom. A time-bomb, with virtually no way to trace it back to him.<p>

Unless it's Sherlock that does the tracing.

Molly is impressed, not to mention her superiors, who actually give her a bonus for performing a much more detailed cavity swap than is usually expected during a simple post-mortem. She proudly tells him about it when he calls to check on things.

"It's all thanks to you, of course. How can I repay? Maybe you'd like to have dinner? My treat."

He smirks at her choice of words, and declines politely. "I'm not sure it's such a good idea, Molly. Stay safe."

"You too," she answers automatically, and he hangs up before she manages to say anything else.

"Asked you out again, didn't she?" Irene asks from the armchair she's curled up on, with a laptop and a glass of wine.

Sherlock rolls his eyes and takes a sip from his own glass. "Jealous?"

"Don't flatter yourself."

He gets up and stretches, his vertebrae popping into place with quiet clicks. "How about I _coorder_ dinner tonight?" It's a word Irene's invented after discovering that, whenever Sherlock offered to 'cook' something, they would inevitably end up 'ordering' take-out. He thinks it's a rather appropriate term, and wishes he'd thought about it first.

"There's still some Thai food left in the refrigerator. Help yourself."

"What about you?"

"Not that hungry. Let me work, Sherlock."

"Is that 'work' as in: 'send an email to the CEO of an international electronic corporation, threatening to expose dirty details from his private life unless he makes sure a company ran by a friend of yours wins a tender for supplying printed circuit boards of questionable quality'?"

"Have you been on my computer _again_?"

"I was bored. What would you have me do?"

"Go out, annoy somebody else for a change, as a general suggestion. Eat your dinner and let me finish this, presently."

If it was John telling him off, he'd probably continue to tease him, make his life miserable: but Irene knows her bonds and her whips, and she sleeps in the same bed as he. Better to leave it be, at least for the time being—even if they both realize she's not really angry, since whatever _real_ work she's doing is well protected, and Sherlock cannot reach it.

(_Of course_ he'd tried. Repeatedly.)

It's been quite domestic this past week. They spent at least five hours together every day, and managed not to kill or seriously injure the other. Sherlock has memorized the way Irene takes her tea, as well as some basic facts one needs to know when living under the same roof with an ex-dominatrix: for instance, never to talk loudly before seven o'clock in the morning, unless one wants to be suffocated with a pillow in an utterly non-playful way.

He thinks that by now he has it all figured out—her small, yet significant frowns, the way she bites her lip when she's deep in thought, the pattern of her breathing just before she falls asleep—and then she does something completely unexpected, and destroys each and every theory he'd created.

Which is good, at least by his standards. The way it _should_ be. She's still a mystery to him, always changing, never staying the same.

* * *

><p>"You <em>really<em> should get out more often," she tells him, slightly breathless, approximately three hours later. "Or perhaps we could get you a treadmill."

He chuckles into the skin at the nape of her neck, and lies down on the bed, pulling her with him.

"Any complaints regarding my performance?"

"Only a carefully expressed concern. You're restless, again, and you've only been off a case for several hours."

"Longer than that. Waiting for the results that would undoubtedly confirm your theory doesn't count as 'being on the case'."

"Still—you need to find yourself something to do while I'm gone."

That's the first time he hears about it, and, naturally, he's not amused. "You're going away?"

"Only for a week or so." She turns in his arms, kisses him—slowly, sensually, without the burn and haste of passion they sometimes let themselves be consumed by. "It'll do you good."

She's right. This—this _thing_ they're having, it's not what he's used to, not the way he'd imagined himself to be living. It's not dull (of course it's not, not with Irene), but it's tame, and rather monotonous, compared to everything he used to do—_before_.

Before everything in his life has about the chase, the adrenaline, the riddles and the unknown. Now it's about staying low and lurking in the shadows, like a sea monster from the depths, a murrain that only occasionally jumps out to hunt and kill.

The rational part of his brain understands that this is the predicament that has to be kept up in order to maintain the illusion of his being dead—but the irrational part, the dominating, angry and stubborn part—wants to get _out_, to be seen.

And although they never talk about it directly, Sherlock is convinced Irene understands this need, understands _him_. Which is why he's even angrier at the thought of her leaving him like this.

"Oh, yes," he drawls, looking away, "very good. Bleeding _perfect_."

Wisely, she chooses not to comment on that.

* * *

><p>It's infinitely more boring without her, so he decides to keep himself busy.<p>

He goes out at night and walks around for hours, keeping away from all the places his old self could have been associated with.

He drops into Molly's lab, asks if there's something for him to do. Solves three cases in two hours. Then she orders take-out, and they eat it together in her small, crammed up office.

It's quite amusing to think he's having dinner—actual dinner—with her, all the while thinking about Irene.

* * *

><p>"This was fun," Molly tells him as he turns to leave. "Maybe we could do it again some time."<p>

_No, we couldn't_, he thinks, before nodding curtly and dashing out of the doors and into the street.

_We couldn't, because it isn't right. It doesn't _feel_ right._

For several hours he wonders what his being with Irene feels like.

It turns out that there is no good answer to that.

* * *

><p>It's the first time he's ever come here. The light is hard, cold and too bright, all but striking at John's slumped shoulders.<p>

_This_ doesn't feel right either.

It feels as if he's seeing a part of himself he'd long forgotten existed—and the sight of it brings back a multitude of feelings, emotions and thoughts he cannot possibly deal with, not here, not now.

He stays there, motionless against a thick, rugged tree trunk, for at least thirty minutes after John's gone.

* * *

><p>"Alright. What happened?"<p>

It's the very first thing she says, after dropping her keys into the glass bowl and putting her bag down. Sherlock shrugs, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"I went to the cemetery. Saw John."

Irene sits down in her armchair, crosses her legs. "What did you think?"

"That I cannot stay here. Not unless I'd go back, which is impossible, at least for the time being."

She nods, having apparently come to the same conclusion a while ago. "What do you suggest?"

He turns his head to look at her, acutely aware of the state he's in (he hasn't eaten for two days, living on nicotine patches and caffeine; he's pale, sweaty, and probably smells quite a bit), and feels a surge of relief at her calm, almost peaceful expression. She had been expecting this, she saw it all coming—and she stayed, he realizes with overwhelming clarity.

He's grateful: an emotion he seldom experiences. "Can we just… go somewhere?"

She wrinkles her nose, pretending to seriously consider the question. "Only if you shower beforehand."

* * *

><p>Her skin is perfect, luminous and warm like porcelain held over a candle flame. It slides against his as they move together, fingers tangled, half-opened lips moulded together, her hair, still wet from their shared shower, sticking to his neck.<p>

This time there is no rush, no frenzy, just a slow, sensual build of pleasure between gasps and kisses.

"We could go to Germany. We both speak the language," Irene proposes, grazing her teeth against his pulse point.

"I'd need a passport, though." He licks her collarbone, probably his favourite part of her body—at least tonight.

"I could get you one." A playful nip, soothed with a flick of her tongue. "You'd have to pretend to be married to me, though."

"I believe there are worse things to be. Not too many of them, but still…"

"Oh, you cheeky bastard, you'll pay for this," she breathes and clenches her muscles around him, causing him to moan and drive deeper into her, fingers curling into her hips with bruising force.

"Go on," he urges her hoarsely, "make me."

She does.

She always does.

* * *

><p>He pays the cab driver as Irene supervises the bellboy carrying their scarce luggage. The street is surprisingly quiet even for such small a town, and the hotel seems deserted, although the reviews they'd found on its webpage were quite enticing. Sherlock sees a distinctively British-looking guy, smoking greedily on the front steps, and turns to him for explanation, practising his phony American accent. "What the <em>hell<em> is wrong with this place? Did somebody die?"

The other man shivers and inhales deeply, his hands shaking so hard he's scattering ash everywhere. "You got that right, mate. They've found a body in the winery this morning. I'd get out of here right about now if I were you."

Sherlock shrugs with studied indifference and enters the lobby to join Irene by the counter. The clerk meets his eyes with an apologetic smile.

"Ah, Mr. Norton. I'm afraid your stay at our hotel might prove a little more 'exciting' than you wished."

"Oh, that's alright," Sherlock drawls, slipping one arm around Irene's waist. "I'm sure we'll manage…"

**TBC...**


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N:** I could do this forever. Especially since you've been so very kind to me, and graced me with so many heart-warming reviews. And yet—Sherlock and Irene are so complex, and so unique, and they have to be kept in character, and therefore: this is the final instalment of this story. (It looks like I've got a thing for five-chaptered fics.)_

_Thank you very much for all your support, and for bearing with my highly irregular updating. I hope to venture into the world of "Sherlock" again, if my Muse decides to help. Until then!..._

* * *

><p>Between the two of them—their wits, his observation skills and Irene's predisposition to extract all kinds of information from unsuspecting males—they crack the case open within seventy-two hours from their arrival.<p>

"I don't think his reaction was justified, though," Sherlock states as they share a celebratory bottle of Mosel red, spread out in the armchairs at half past three in the morning. "So his business partner had an affair with their secretary. Why not fire the girl and be done with it? Why drown him in a barrel of a perfectly good Riesling?"

Irene rolls her eyes. "They were lovers, Sherlock, before they were business partners. It's quite obvious if you decide to look for it. That's why he felt so betrayed by the affair. It was the crime of real passion, not just business-related necessity.

"Anyway," she adds smugly, stretching her back like a very content cat, "another case closed. Is that what you wished for when we escaped from London?"

Sherlock snorts and puts his glass aside. "It's definitely _not_ closed."

"How so? You looked for the answer, and you found it. Isn't that what detectives do?"

"I'm a _consulting_ detective. I have to share my findings with someone. Make sure the crime gets punished, and justice prevails."

"Sherlock Holmes, ever the knight in the shining armour, even in death," she remarks sarcastically, with something quite like disdain flashing in her eyes. "You _cannot_ do this, Sherlock. You're dead. Act it out."

"How come _you_ are allowed to continue your 'work', then, despite finding yourself in quite a similar state?" He's getting angry, his adrenaline level still sky-high with no proper closure to the case provided.

"Because I'm not doing _the same things_ I had before. Because I've moved on to a different circle of people, changed my profile, made sure nobody would recognize me. And because dear Jim's dead, thanks to you, of course." She sighs and slides off her armchair, kneeling at his side, her hand gently stroking his bare arm. "You cannot go to the police. You shouldn't as much as give them an anonymous hint. Nobody would catch on, not initially—but it'd make you feel bold enough to try it again, and again, and one day… One day, someone would read an article about a tip-off enabling the police of Andorra, or Sweden, or Hungary, close a particularly puzzling case, and think: 'Hey, that's just like the stuff that crazy fake-detective guy in London used to pull off—what was his name again?...' And they would share it with a friend, or blog about it, and keep an eye out for other news like this.

"And there _would_ be other cases, Sherlock, because we both know you couldn't stop once you were back on the track. And then—then the Yard would find out, and come looking for you."

"There's no one there clever enough to ever catch up with me," he protests, not looking at her. Irene's fingers tighten.

"They would ask John to help them. Or your brother."

His head whips around, eyes locking with hers. "These are all probabilities, theories, pointless musings, Irene. I need _facts_. I need actual proof on which I would build my deduction regarding my future. This isn't helping."

He stands up and starts to pace, from the armchair to the bedroom door, to the bathroom one, and back, a vicious triangle, his head hurting just a little, the cogs in his mind turning restlessly. "What am I if I cannot do my work? I was _always_ doing my work. Why should I stop now? I'm smarter than most people I've ever met, probably smarter than ninety-nine-point-nine percent of this planet's population. Why should I worry about being discovered?"

"Because although it is highly improbable, it is not impossible," she throws his own saying back at him, still sitting on the floor, very calm yet with an expression marking some serious decision upon her face. "And once they find you, Sherlock… Well, let me just tell you that you'd rather 'come out', and it is, on your own terms."

"And what if they do?" He rarely raises his voice when talking to her, but this is one of the occasions. "What could they possibly do to me? I can prove I'm not a criminal; I'm not like—"

_Like you_.

It hangs unspoken in the air between them as they look at each other across the dimly lit room; Sherlock can only see half of Irene's face, illuminated gently by the light coming from an artificial fireplace behind her right shoulder; her eyes are obscured, holes of darkness over perfectly shaped cheekbones, but he knows there's no more doubt about the disdain in them.

"So that's it," he hears himself say in a dull, toneless voice. "That's what they call a 'deal breaker', isn't it?"

"I believe you're right," her voice is soft, almost tender, and when she stands up and comes closer to him, embraces him, tugs her head under his chin, he feels a pang of regret of it having to be so.

"I cannot be what I'm not."

"I wouldn't want you to."

He takes her hand, thumb brushing the underside of the wrist. Her pulse is slow, steady and strong—there's no doubt in her, as there is none in him.

He slides one hand to the back of her head, angles her face towards him, kisses her deeply, trying to make her understand, make her see everything that's in him—the restlessness, the hopelessness, the need to _be himself_, the regret. She responds leisurely, setting a slow, sensual pace as they move into the bedroom. Sherlock lifts her up, feels her legs wrap around his waist and slips his hands under Irene's dressing gown, smirking as she gasps at their coldness against her skin.

Even when they're at their most tender and selfless, sex is usually about the power play between them, about having the upper hand, taking the lead. This time, though, he takes her as much as he gives himself to her, knowing with cold, blinding certainty this may well be the last time they do it, ever.

He falls asleep afterwards, giving proof to the fact of him being as normal and average a man as there ever could be, at least in some ways. When he wakes up, Irene's sitting in the edge of the bed, fully dressed and with her make-up on, tracing lines across his forehead with warm fingertips.

"I'll be off now," she whispers, and in his dazed, sleepy state he doesn't find in himself any will to protest. "Keep the passport, and stay in touch, _hubby dearest_."

He murmurs something inaudible, before blinking twice and looking at her with slightly more clarity in his eyes. "I've… enjoyed this," he admits reluctantly. "I never thought I would."

"Neither did I," she answers and kisses the corner of his mouth, reminding him of their very first kiss, at Baker Street, in what seems now to have been another lifetime.

He'd turned his head then, captured her lips with his.

He doesn't now.

He closes his eyes and lets her leave him. Lets her get away.

* * *

><p>They exchange emails with surprising regularity. She sometimes sends him pictures of places she's in, and if he's close enough, they meet for coffee, or for lunch. Never for dinner.<p>

She looks well when he sees her, and tells him he does, too.

They never sleep together again. Never kiss. Never as much as touch each other beyond the strictest formal conventions. It would be so easy to slip back into that, to start pretending once again they could _really do this, this time for sure_—but that would have been a lie, and they have to cope with enough lies as it is.

* * *

><p>Two and a half years after Germany, Irene sends him a link to an article which states, once and for all, that the person claiming to be Richard Brooke was in fact James Moriarty, a man who'd later murdered the very journalist that published his story, and that the whole campaign of hate aimed at one Sherlock Holmes had been nothing more than a bunch of lies.<p>

He sits in a Parisian café, drinking ridiculously expensive coffee, as he texts her back: _Took them long enough. Perhaps they'd fired Donnovan._

He doesn't expect an answer, but it comes, almost straight away: _You could go back now._

_I know._

* * *

><p>"You bastard. You bloody, unfeeling sod."<p>

He's more than ready to get punched, but instead he's being enveloped by strong arms, and held in a crushing embrace for an alarming amount of time.

"John. Let go. I'm losing the feeling in my fingers."

"Right. Right." His best friend—his only real friend—steps back, and eyes him carefully. "You look good."

"For a corpse?"

"Yes, that too. Have you told anyone yet?"

"I came here first. I thought I owed you that much—a chance to make a bloody mess of my face before anyone does."

John laughs nervously, brushes a hand over his chin. "That might still be coming your way."

"I know."

"Shall we call Mycroft? Mrs. Hudson? I don't know… Molly?"

He bites his tongue to stop himself from saying something regarding Molly's involvement in this whole scheme. There'll be more than enough time for that later. "I think we'd better have."

* * *

><p>Mycroft is rather shocked, but obviously relieved. Mrs. Hudson looks like she might have a heart attack, but she doesn't, fortunately. Molly simply smiles brilliantly, and Sherlock knows she's thinking about Irene's—Jane's—absence, trying to make some sense of it.<p>

It takes them three days to have him installed back at 221B (no tenants seemed eager to live in the apartment that has bullet holes in the walls and the fridge that had been contaminated with suspicious specimens). It takes Mycroft four days to get a hold of Lestrade and his team, and haul them over.

Anderson and Donnovan wouldn't look him in the eye, which makes him feel quite smug. Lestrade looks stunned, angry, but first and foremost: relieved. "Does this mean you'll be working with us again?" he asks after the others have left, looking quite hopeful. Apparently the rates of successfully solved cases had dropped significantly since he 'departed'.

"Maybe," he says with a shrug, although he knows he'd jump at the very first case they gave him.

The DI nods and leaves, together with Mycroft, and Sherlock is left alone, in a place that looks, smells and _feels_ familiar—the place where he belongs.

He unpacks the last of the books. Strokes the warm, shiny wood of his violin, checks the tension in the strings, the level of deterioration in the bow. He's not ready to play yet, but it's coming—everything is coming back to him.

Everything is the way it should be.

His phone vibrates in the left pocket of his coat, thrown carelessly across the sofa. He picks it up, half expecting a dinner invitation from the Watsons, or a similar message from Molly, who seems to have got her hopes up when he'd returned to London alone.

Naturally, it's neither of them.

_Congratulations on your successful resurrection. What is the social protocol? Do you expect flowers? Chocolate? A Harrods gift card?_

He smirks and walks into the kitchen, phone in hand, to check whether the take-out menus are still there. They are. _I'm feeling rather peckish. Will probably coorder dinner soon._

As he waits for the answer, he realizes he's not actually sure what he'd want it to be: so when it does come, he's surprised to feel amusingly elated.

He reaches for the receiver and punches out the number of the nearest Indian restaurant, eyes fixed on the phone laid down on the table, the screen still glowing:

_I'm not hungry. But I do believe I have some unfinished business with that desk of yours._

* * *

><p><strong>The End<strong>


End file.
